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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300097">My Boy Builds Coffins</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Skies_Rising/pseuds/Gray_Skies_Rising'>Gray_Skies_Rising</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Wisher [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Inspired by Comment, Jason finds Tim after he slips into his dream world, Passive Suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:08:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Skies_Rising/pseuds/Gray_Skies_Rising</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>My boy builds coffins he makes them all day<br/>But it's not just for work and it isn't for play<br/>He's made one for himself<br/>One for me too<br/>One of these days he'll make one for you<br/>-‘My Boy Builds Coffins’ by Florence + The Machine</p><p>Jason finds Tim and maybe a bit more.</p><p>Companion piece to ‘Am I Alive and Well or Am I Dreaming Dead’. You don’t need to read it, but it would probably help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Wisher [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993216</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Boy Builds Coffins</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=B">B</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An anonymous commenter asked about how the Batfamily would react to what Tim did. So... here’s Jason’s reaction. Sorry B, I didn’t really have any ideas for the others.</p><p>Warnings: a non-graphic description of passive suicide (see part one of the series), Jason’s ever present homicidal pit rage, mentions of actual active suicide, mention of guns, mentions of violence, slight gore/horrific imagery</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Replacements’ a goddamn fool, Jason decides. He vaguely wonders if the kid seriously thought no one would notice him pocket a piece of the fragmented amulet. He lives with a bunch of detectives, for fucks sake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, at least, he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To be perfectly honest, Jason wasn't completely sure of the kids' living arrangement. Not since before the ‘Losing Bruce in the Timesteam’ fiasco.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason didn’t give out invitations to his safe houses to Tim, not that that ever stopped the kid before, and Tim </span>
  <em>
    <span>certainly </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t give them out to Jason. His relationship with Tim has improved over the years, but not </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, as Jason watches him make enough polite post-patrol conversation to be remembered but not enough to be noticed before slipping off, he starts to regret that hole in his intel. He waits ten minutes after the kid slipped before biding Alfred goodnight and following the tracker he had stuck to the underside of Tim’s bike fender.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tracker leads Jason to a rundown building on the Waterfront that he’s sure is probably due for demolition sometime in the next two to three weeks. Not exactly safe house material, but if you needed a quick getaway or to lay low for a few hours, it would work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason hides his bike next to Tim’s and watches the windows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It only takes about two minutes before he glimpses movement in one of the dark windows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes even less time for him to grapple to the window and pry it open. Who cares if he startles the replacement, if he didn’t want anyone to follow him he should have paid better attention to his surroundings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s nearly pitch dark inside the room, the breaking dawn just barely breaking the night, so Jason fishes the flashlight he always keeps with him out of his pocket and clicks it on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sight that greets him wasn’t pleasant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There lies Tim, pale body thrown in sharp contrast with the darkness around it, black smoke pouring out of his mouth and curling over him in a hypnotic way, clutching the piece of amulet in an outstretched palm. But despite the fact that he looked like he was in the center piece for some kind of satanic ritual, he looked, almost, at peace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was that wrong for Jason to think? Was it wrong for this to be the first situation Jason has been in in which Tim didn’t have a permanent furrow between his brows? The lines in the boy's face had smoothed out, the ever permanent bags under his eyes had lessened, and he was even drooling a little from his open mouth. Had it not been for the obvious fact that his chest wasn’t moving and the smoke that was coming out of him, Jason might have thought the kid to be asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His chest wasn’t moving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if his chest isn't moving, that means he’s not breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Shit.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Taking a running dive and sliding on his knees, Jason kneeled next to Tim with hands outstretched but unsure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he can make any move to touch Tim, the smoke coagulates and makes a form solid enough to push Jason back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t,” it hisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason suddenly wishes he hadn’t left his guns with his bike. He should have known that his replacement would have done something stupid like resummon the thing they had spent the last </span>
  <em>
    <span>month</span>
  </em>
  <span> tracking down and getting rid of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing- the perp from earlier had called it a Wisher- hovered over Tim. It didn’t have any teeth to bare, but that apparently didn't stop it from trying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason snarled right back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do to him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Whisher huffs and says, “What makes you think I did anything?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason wants to wrap his hands around the things neck and snap it. Knowing nothing would come out of it if he tried, he refrains the best he can. He settles for a deadpan stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Whisher stares right back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Whisher glances away first, Jason has won this round.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was doing what I do best. He had a wish and now I’m granting it.” It growls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His wish was for more sleep?” Jason highly doubts it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seems to roll its monochrome eyes, “Of course not. The stacis is just so he can get a taste of what the world will probably be likebefore he officially agrees.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do I wake him?” Jason demands, his hands are back to hovering over the fallen bird.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t,” the Wisher said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean I can't wake him?” Anger coats the words as he spits them, not that he knows where it came from. Shouldn’t he be happy that his replacement is out of commission? Why was the Pit rearing up in </span>
  <em>
    <span>defense </span>
  </em>
  <span>of him? He pushes the thoughts aside before they turn green, they don’t matter at the moment, Tim very much does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I mean…</span>
  </em>
  <span> you </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> wake him-</span>
  <em>
    <span>,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jason felt a ‘but’ coming,” -but,” there it was,” then you’ve sealed his fate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what’s his fate?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your boys a coffin maker, take that how you want, but it's the truth.” The Wisher says. It moved to perch on the window sill, smoke still curling around and </span>
  <em>
    <span>into</span>
  </em>
  <span> Tim. “He does everything with his whole heart only for it to be buried underneath everything else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t answer the question.” Jason flexes his fingers in an attempt to not take a swing at the thing. Everyone who had been a part of tracking the thing down had already tried to throw a punch at the Wisher in the past month, and everyone had been disappointed and frustrated when their fist had gone straight through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Wisher made a humming sound, gold eyes glittering with something that could only be called amusement. “No, I suppose not. Well… waking young Timothy would either automatically seal the wish or his molecules would rip themselves apart and he would die. It depends on the wish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason yanks his hands back and if burned. “And what would his wish be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know,” the Whisher said in lieu of an answer, “that in this reality, Tim will die from a missed infection 12 years after he retires from the mask?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason stayed quiet, the Wisher was going somewhere with this. He just didn't know where.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In the reality that he is creating for himself,” it continued when there was no response from Jason, “he will probably die at 14. Suicide. He will be found by the Drakes’ housekeeper, one of the only people to care for him, even if only in a professional manner. His parents will return from their dig only to attend the funeral before heading back out. There’s no need for them to come back for years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That didn’t add up. Tim was practically living at the Manor at 14. Of the sparse details of Tims upbringing that Jason had picked up on, he knew Tim only ever went back to his house when his parents were home, which was hardly ever. Plus he had plenty of people who cared about him, the entire Teen Titans team for example. That’s more than Jason had ever gotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It interrupted Jason's train of thought with a sad sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me, Jason,” the Wisher is sympathetic as if that alone would soften the blow it was about to deliver, “what else do you think your survival of Ethiopia changes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason chokes.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am an avid believer that Tim would have committed suicide if he had never become Robin or had been dragged into the Batfamily.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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